Education vs. Entertainment

Do education videos stand a chance against entertainment videos?

Of course they do!

First of all, who says the two have to be mutually exclusive? In fact, don't many people prefer their educational experiences to have an entertaining element?

Secondly, as we've discussed time and time again in this course, there are many different types of learners, including visual ones. In Social Software in Libraries, Farkas references dual coding theory, which states that learning is best accomplished through a combination of visual and auditory channels. (206) For these reasons, I think educational videos on the web will continue to be very popular.

I think one of the major benefits of 2.0 technologies and of technology in general is that in our day and age the line between education and entertainment isn't as solid as it once was. The other day I used an online video to learn how to draw a goat (don't ask). This may not be "educational" in the same way our grandparents might conceive of education, but I did learn something! Education has left the classroom and can be found anywhere and everywhere. When I did the 23 Things program with CTLS one of the first topics was lifelong learning. While lifelong learning is nothing new, the internet and things like YouTube make self-directed learning much easier.